Why Show Newsletters More Respect

In 2014, at least three surveys stated that email marketing was the most effective digital marketing tactic. Ascend2, Gigaom Research, and eConsultancy all produced similar findings. It’s not as glamorous as social media or as tech-sexy as search marketing, but the Inbox delivers results.

One component of email marketing is the humble newsletter. For the past several years, every marketing professional who has persevered at producing a regular e-newsletter has done so despite pressures to invest more in social media, to accelerate blogging, and losing a big chunk of mailing list to the Canada Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

Your determination to do what’s right is paying off. An article from Wired Magazine titled “The Return of the Newsletter” highlights reasons why newsletters are making a comeback:
• Inboxes are cleaner (less spam) and more accessible (mobile)
• Newsletters provide a finite, curated, and manageable selection of content
• RSS technology has died out

The most interesting advice in the Wired article is that the most successful newsletters are highly individual. Their authors write directly to readers in a way that shares personality. This builds stronger customer relationships than professional but impersonal corporate communications.

Social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are now looking for ways to monetize their huge user bases. Last year many businesses experienced huge drops in organic reach when Facebook made changes to drive more paid advertising. What this confirms for me is that companies should continue with efforts to build up their e-newsletter lists and behave as though social media might pull the rug out from under them at any time – which they can.

When you have control over your own mailing list, you’re also in control of reach, segmentation, and frequency of email communications.

I try to do my own research and talk to other IT professionals, but it’s always good to get that expertise applied to your own specific situation. I found the discussions we had with Smartt really useful, especially around how we could make our systems more secure and robust.